A 20-year-old college student was allegedly raped by seven men over a span of one-and-a-half year on multiple occasions in Banaskantha district, said police. The perpetrators, also college students, used a private video of the young woman to allegedly blackmail her. The matter came to light on Tuesday and an FIR was subsequently lodged. Police said that one of the accused, who had befriended the woman over a social media platform months ago, had filmed her while she was changing clothes. The accused had threatened to make the video viral on the social media platforms, said the FIR. Using the same clip, he forced the student to have physical relations with him and his friends at different places on different occasions between November 2023 and February 2025, stated the FIR, as reported by news agecny PTI. Banaskantha SP Akshayraj Makwana also said, “The first accused had sent the video to his friend, who then shared it with others.” However, the video found its way to a WhatsApp group and quickly went viral. One of the family members of the woman came across it as well. The accused and the survivor belong to the same community. Therefore, a community panchayat was held, but since there was no outcome, the woman's family approached the police and filed a complaint. SP Makwana said, “An FIR was filed on March 11 and the accused was booked for rape as well as under relevant sections of the Information Technology Act. We have formed several teams to apprehend and arrest all the accused persons.”
